Now that the San Francisco Giants are without Melky Cabrera at least for the rest of the regular season, how does the offseason trade that sent pitcher Jonathan Sanchez to the Kansas City Royals in exchange for Cabrera look now? Well, let's just say it's not much different than it looked before the suspension.
Even though Cabrera is no longer playing, he still gave the Giants a big uptick in offensive production, leading the National League in hits (159) and runs scored (84), turning in a .346 batting average that trails only the Pittsburgh Pirates' Andrew McCutchen among big-league hitters, and driving in 60 runs, second on the team behind Buster Posey. He's been worth nearly five wins more than a replacement-level player -- if you go by FanGraphs, his WAR is 4.5; if you go by Baseball Reference, it's 4.8 -- meaning that the Melkman certainly did his fair share for the Giants this season.
On the other side of the coin, Sanchez has simply been atrocious for both the Kansas City Royals and Colorado Rockies this season. He hasn't lasted longer than six innings in a single outing this year, and hasn't reached the fifth in eight of his 15 starts. He's got just one win and nine losses, an 8.07 ERA, a 2.09 WHIP and a 53-45 walk-to-strikeout ratio. And oh, yeah, he's back on the DL with biceps tendinitis, too.
This wasn't a "fair trade" in terms of production before Wednesday, but it's closer now that neither Sanchez nor Cabrera is currently playing baseball.
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